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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. x. OCT. 25, 1002.

Episcopalian and grandfather of the present M r H R Haweis, incumbent of bt. James s, Westmoreland Street. In 1803 Baker's was mostly frequented by merchants and others concerned in the timber trade, inland and foreign (' The Picture of London for 1803).

TheLowtonian Society, so named in honour of its founder and first president, Thomas Lowton, Clerk of the Nisi Pn.ua, was estab- lished for the association of gentlemen and mutual protection of one another "against insidious attempts to injure their profes- sional reputation." Thomas Lowton was a highly respected member of the Inner lemple, who was honoured by the confidence of three successive Lord Chief Justices, and .ield the office of Clerk of the Nisi Prius for forty years " The society first met at the ' British Coffee-House" in 1796, but after that year they favoured most of the principal club taverns with their patronage^ See ' The Low- tonian Society, founded 1793.'

The Lumber Troop, it is thought, was originally a military troop of horse, who, when disbanded, formed themselves into a convivial society, retaining all their former military distinctions, as colonel, lieutenant- colonel, captain, &c., but there is really no certainty as to its origin. The Antient and Honourable Lumber Troop, as they styled themselves, were accustomed to meet at the "Gentleman and Porter" in New Street Square, off Fleet Street. The society was one of the most celebrated, respect- able, and by some said to be the oldest con- vivial society in London. But by "lumber" was "heavy" cavalry meant, or had the word some more direct reference to goods stored by the Lombards, the lumber-room being the apartment where the Lombards, the original pawnbrokers, stored their pledges? There was a Lumber House in Hertford, whence the Hertford coaches left for London. The goneral impression among the members themselves was that the name was originally a burlesque of the trained bands of London, and that instead of being available troops they were no better than so much lumber, this burlesque spirit being further maintained by the imposing adjectives of "Ancient and Honourable" Prince George of Denmark, Hogarth, who designed for it a coat of arms, " Past Colonel " Birch, and Sir John Hob- house, when member for Westminster, were troopers, the society at one time numbering from eight to nine thousand members. See Grant's ' Sketches in London,' p. 89.

The Lying Club. See Household Words, May, l n OO. The Madrigal Society's first meetings were

held at the " Twelve Bells " in Bride Lane, Fleet Street. It was established in 1741.

The Man-Hunting Club, composed of young rakes of the law, met at a tavern near the Tennis Court Playhouse, at the back of Lincoln's Inn Fields. See further 'Tav. Anecd.,' p. 142.

The Marine Society appears to have been founded about the year 1756 at Lloyd's Coffee-House. See ' Rules and Regulations of the Marine Society, 1829.'

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

(To be continued.)

WOMEN CHAPLAINS IN CONVENTS. In Eckenstein's ' Woman under Monasticism,' published by the Cambridge University Press a year or two ago, and deservedly commended for its fairness arid research, there is so extraordinary a passage in chap. x. (on the 'Internal Arrangements of the Convent') that I should like, with your permission, to say a few words in correction. The writer, after stating, quite accurately, that in most houses of nuns there were men chaplains, adds that the fact that the chaplain's office could be, and was, held by a woman is established beyond a doubt. Documents are then quoted referring to the capellanissa in various convents ; and the writer (appa- rently entertaining some reasonable doubts as to whether the female chaplain was qualified to say Mass or impart sacramental absolution) ends by the vague surmise that "probably she recited the inferior services in the chapel of the nunnery." The fact, of course, is that the office of the capellanissa of a convent neither is nor was in the remotest degree connected with that of the chaplain, or spiritual father, of the community, with whom Miss Eckenstein appears in some extra- ordinary way to confuse her. The mistake only accentuates a wish I have often felt viz., that modern English writers on these topics were not in the habit of absolutely ignoring the fact that the monastic life and observances which they describe so minutely are not simply part of the vanished history of mediaeval Europe, but a living, actual part of the life of Catholic Christendom of to-day.

An inquiry at any one of the numerous English convents belonging to the ancient orders would have saved our author from her unfortunate hypothesis as to the status of the capellanissa. The ' Monastic Ceremonial of St. Scholastica's Abbey, Teignmouth,' for example, has a special chapter on the duties of the nun-chaplain. They are, I need hardly say, of a purely ceremonial kind, and consist chiefly in attendance on the lady abbess in